O Brasil de Montaigne

this article proposes a new perspective on montaigne's celebrated essays on america and its peoples, initially in the light of the rethorical form of declamation adopted in them. the comparison of the "american" essays reveals, moreover, the privileged place of brazil and its cannibals in montaigne's reflection on the new world, and the compositon of an image of all of its peoples that is simultaneously conformed to the edenic model of the tupinambá and elevated to the dignity of antiquity's great men - "tupinambized" and "romanized".